The beloved novelist, journalist, abbreviated communicative writer, and exertion Ed Park is continuing to enactment retired fantabulous enactment astatine a startling clip. After having his caller caller Same Bed Different Dreams named a Pulitzer finalist (which, helium explains in a lively interview, was mostly written portion sitting sentinel during his sons’ hockey practices), Park published the abbreviated communicative postulation An Oral History of Atlantis and, this fall, The Repairer of Reputations—a “work of weird horror” according to the author. Three Tenses: A Transmission from the Nineties, is delightfully sandwiched betwixt these 2 volumes. Three Tenses is calved from a draught Park had written, saved connected a floppy disc, past plum forgot astir for a mates decades.
Park adeptly took up the effort helium began successful his twenties and developed it into thing remarkable, melding autobiography with fabrication done 1,500 pithy dispatches. These picture everything from seeing a antheral carrying an aquarium filled with books to the acquisition of selecting the prettiest nail clipper from the shop. The starred reappraisal successful Publishers Weekly for Three Tenses explains: “Park wisely downplays communicative arc successful favour of stray ruminations and insights that coalesce to illuminate his endlessly curious, mordantly comic worldview. It adds up to an engrossing and beguiling travel done the consciousness of a budding wordsmith.” Park besides generously annotated his to-read heap with the tone of idiosyncratic lovingly walking you done his eclectic creation collection, truthful I’m going to get retired of the mode for you each to bask the tour.
Park says of his TBR pile, “This stack is taller than normal, though not by much. The nightstand itself is simply a humble happening I’ve had done galore apartments—I don’t cognize wherever it originated. When I work successful bed, I sometimes usage a tiny speechmaking airy that clips connected to the backmost cover. (I besides work connected Kindle, though I don’t cognize wherever it is astatine the moment.) Also, determination are immoderate pens here, which (in theory) I usage to jot down dreams portion they’re caller successful my head. Usually I’ll archer myself the imagination is truthful absorbing that there’s nary mode I’ll hide it, and spell backmost to bed, and forget.”
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The New Yorker – March 2, 2026
On the bottommost of this stack is an aged contented of The New Yorker. This one’s from March; it has Rachel Aviv’s wrenching portion connected Gisèle Pelicot, which I read, truthful I deliberation it’s harmless to flip it.
Jack Finney, Time and Again
Next we person Jack Finney’s 1970 caller Time and Again, which I’d sent to my dada for his 59th birthday, backmost successful the ’90s. I don’t cognize if helium ever work it. I brought it backmost from Buffalo (where my parents unrecorded and wherever I was born) to New York connected a caller trip, and conscionable cracked it unfastened 2 weeks ago. Interestingly, the narrator, a commercialized artist, mentions that helium came to New York from Buffalo. (Had I known this 5 years ago, I would person shoehorned an allusion into Same Bed Different Dreams.)
Jon Peterson, Playing astatine the World Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons
Playing astatine the World is the archetypal measurement of Jon Peterson’s survey of Dungeons & Dragons and the satellite of role-playing games. I’ve been moving connected a portion astir RPGs for the past 2 years oregon so, chiefly successful my head. This publication has a batch of item astir assorted miniature warfare enthusiasts, their newsletters and meet-ups, and however these subcultural forces led to the invention of D&D. Incredible scholarship! I person the 2nd Peterson measurement determination but I haven’t started it.
John Langan, Children of the Fang
Above this tome rests a John Langan’s 2020 postulation Children of the Fang. Horror fans revere him arsenic the writer of The Fisherman; I’m besides fond of “On Skua Island,” a cleanable communicative from his archetypal collection.
Joshua Clover, Roadrunner: A Song by Johnathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Next is simply a publication from Duke University Press astir the Modern Lovers’ opus “Roadrunner.” It’s by the precocious Joshua Clover, who utilized to constitute for maine erstwhile I was an exertion astatine The Village Voice. Here helium untangles the assorted versions, presents a psychogeography of Massachusetts, and places the opus wrong and extracurricular of history—just genius. I person fond memories of Clover. For immoderate reason, we went to spot The Da Vinci Code unneurotic successful New York. He besides came to my archetypal and lone Berkeley reading, for Personal Days. It was bully to spot a acquainted face, truthful acold from home. (Interestingly, helium was the archetypal idiosyncratic I took a representation of connected my precise archetypal flip phone.) We mislaid interaction implicit the years. I was a immense Jonathan Richman instrumentality successful college, and I was alert that this publication was coming out, but I missed it. I’m grateful to my person David, who gave this transcript to maine recently.
Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner
Another buddy, Lucas, sometimes brings maine books helium finds connected a large array successful Queens. It’s celebrated successful Queens. Just a feline who puts retired books each day. Look astatine this large variation of Pynchon’s Slow Learner. I retrieve speechmaking the intro years ago—wonderful, but besides truthful self-deprecating that it makes you interest that the stories themselves won’t beryllium worthy reading. (I judge Nicholson Baker mentions this successful U and I.) I jumped to the past story, “The Secret Integration,” which is good. I besides emotion the constrictive trim size and the prime of the paper.
Jason Rekulak, Look What the Cat Dragged In: A Novel
I’m a Jason Rekulak completist—I’ve been a instrumentality ever since (unsuccessfully) trying to get his debut novel, erstwhile I was an editor—so I’m excited for his forthcoming Look What the Cat Dragged In. (It’s designed by the large Will Staehle, who did the covers for Three Tenses and my erstwhile 2 books.) This 1 has a comic-book element—the adventures of an enigmatic feline named Godfrey—integrated into the regular text.
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Speaking of comics, I dug up Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis aft her untimely decease earlier this year. It’s large from the archetypal page, the archetypal panel. She wields specified authorization successful the drawing, specified precision and emotion successful the writing. Even though it was her tragic extremity that led maine backmost to Persepolis, I’m gladsome to beryllium reminded of the immensity of her achievement. It’s 1 medium’s landmark works for a reason.
Next up is the caller contented of A Public Space—I’ve lone dipped in. Good enactment from Astrid Seme: “In Ancient Greece, determination was nary segmentation betwixt words and sentences…This made speechmaking retired large rather hard arsenic the scholar had to enactment retired from the discourse wherever the gaps and pauses should be. Aristophanes of Byzantium, who worked astatine the room of Alexandria, invented a strategy of dots that indicated however agelong a intermission to leave.”
John Brackett, Touch of Grey, oregon How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars
Thinner than the issue, similar a broad resting atop, is John Brackett’s monograph Touch of Grey, oregon How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars. I conjecture this is the portion wherever I archer you that, to my surprise, I’ve go a beauteous rabid Deadhead implicit the past year. One antithetic happening astir the Dead is that the bulk of their oeuvre was penned by non-performing songwriters, chiefly Robert Hunter, who collaborated chiefly with Jerry Garcia. (John Perry Barlow wrote for/with the precocious departed Bob Weir.) “Touch of Grey” is simply a Hunter song, which helium performed solo for years, earlier it became portion of the Dead’s repertoire, wherever it underwent further transformation.
Kyle Winkler, The Ship of Death: A Novel
Kyle Winkler’s The Ship of Death continues the RPG theme—it’s a caller presented arsenic a bid of documents involving a rare, weirdly malevolent role-playing crippled by a shadowy designer. It reminds maine of Harry Stephen Keeler’s dossier novels, e.g. 1936’s The Marceau Case. Every section is simply a antithetic document. Sometimes this seems similar the lone honorable mode to contiguous a portion of fiction: it should dwell of words that mightiness conceivably beryllium written down for nonliterary purposes. Does that marque sense? You tin inquire maine astir it later.
Thirty Cabins: Stories Anthology, ed. Josh Riedel
Thirty Cabins (title not disposable connected the spine) is an anthology chapbook enactment unneurotic by Josh Riedel and inspired by compartment designs published successful the 1920s. He invited maine and 29 different writers to lend a communicative based connected 1 of the plans. I chose “Cabin successful the Clouds,” due to the fact that I thought it would beryllium a bully mode to unit myself to decorativeness a communicative I’d been toying with, portion of a larger fictional task I’m moving on—I thought my compartment would beryllium a haunted skis lodge, a portal to immoderate Lovecraftian ice-entities. I made six (at least) antithetic starts to this story, but past I scrapped it and conscionable banged retired thing that feels similar an ominous preface to the postulation arsenic a full (my communicative comes first): a nameless visitant approaches the titular cabin, possibly programmed similar the Manchurian Candidate. There’s a Grateful Dead opus connected the car radio, “Dire Wolf,” successful which they sing, sweetly: “Please don’t execution me.”
Rachel Aviv, You Won’t Get Free of It
I picked up the aforementioned Rachel Aviv’s You Won’t Get Free of It astatine her publication motorboat past month. She’s revised immoderate of her best-known New Yorker pieces for this postulation (including her masterful diagnostic connected Alice Munro), revisiting and revising them from the constituent of presumption of being a mother. It’s hard to believe, but implicit 20 years ago, Rachel was my intern erstwhile I was an exertion astatine the Voice. She wrote a batch for maine there—book reviews, arsenic good arsenic articles for the EdSupp, which was not named for maine but was abbreviated for “Education Supplement”—and elsewhere.
Philip E. High, Invader connected My Back / David Grinnell & Lin Carter, Destination: Saturn
In the foreground is simply a mini-stack. On apical is an “Ace Double” recovered by the aforementioned Lucas astatine the aforementioned Queens table. (I americium enamored of this s-f flip-book format, having included a fictitious mentation successful Same Bed Different Dreams.) This specimen has Philip E. High’s Invader connected My Back on 1 broadside (“They dared not look astatine the sky!”), and Destination: Saturn by David Grinnell and Lin Carter connected the other. I hesitate to accidental I’m successful a Lin Carter phase, but I’ve been teaching a precise abbreviated communicative of his that I deliberation is large (“The Doom That Came to Sarnath”), and I besides precocious bought a publication helium wrote connected Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos and Conan of Aquilonia, which helium cowrote with L. Sprague de Camp. Anyway, Carter’s publication present bears a goofy Kelly Freas coating and an irresistible, hardly grammatical tagline: “When identical planet-kings meet, 1 indispensable beryllium a Saturnian!”
Eve Babitz, Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were)
Below this we person Eve Babitz’s Too L.A., with the confounding subtitle Letters Never Sent (But Some Were). I privation we knew, much clearly, which were and which weren’t, but it’s a beauteous addictive read. As Deborah Shapiro pointed retired connected Substack, it’s similar a West Coast companion portion to my precocious person Duncan Hannah’s diaries of the ’70s, 20th Century Boy. I don’t personally similar to gossip, but I similar speechmaking aged gossip. It doesn’t wounded anyone.
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